Ah. What should I edit? I try. I shorten. I abbreviate. I write without spaces. The predicament. Of wording that perfect line in 140 characters, admiring it as a service to humanity, and posting it on that spot in infinite cyber space where it lives forever as that five-letter word: tweet. That one social media space that has transformed the face of global, virtual interaction in such a dynamic, dramatic, dazzling way that never before did words seem so potent, so far-reaching, so un-deleteable (the curse of screen shots!), defying all conventional means of communication. I think and I tweet, or is it the other way around? This is the million-character question, the search for an answer to which brings me to borrow my son’s Apple (another fabulous invention!) on Eid day. This is my Eid gift to myself: an attempt to decipher the denotation of the role of the delightful platform called Twitter and the connotation of the importance of the reach of a single tweet to all who bother to read tweets: of Justin Beiber’s with his 45,805,810 followers to that DP-less (that’s display picture for the uninitiated), anonymous accounts with two followers and five tweets. The world is tweeting today. Heads of states, religious leaders, sportspersons, celebrities, writers, activists, the UN. All tweet. The jihadi, the militant, the Klan, the orthodox, the bigot, the liberal, the pseud, the fraud, the self-important, the loser, the VIP, the achiever, the loudmouth, and the troll. All tweet. And what huge, huge fun/understanding of global-regional-national sensibilities it is to read tweets and to read responses to tweets. The good, the crazy, the bad, the inspirational, the sickening, the jostling narratives of millions all exist in that one 140-character line: a tweet. For an opinionated individual like me, Twitter has been a Godsend (Thank you, Jack Dorsey for changing the way the world communicates), and I high-fived it like two chubby ten-year-olds in a candy store greet one another. There are people to admire and follow. And people to mock (too many to fit in this space). Whether they read my tweets or not is immaterial to the secret glee that at any given time I can gush over Amitabh Bachchan’s latest movie, swoon over Channing Tatum’s eyes, eulogise Nicholas Kristof’s wisdom, retweet (RT) Imran Khan’s wishes for Pakistan, smile reading Ronan Farrow’s inimitable wry humour (his movie star looks are just an added bonus), be moved by Christiane Amanpour’s heartfelt words on Syrian refugees, awww at SRK’s love for life, or praise Shashi Tharoor for his very cool words (man, his voice is mesmerising!). The people I follow all add something to my timeline (TL) and the effect varies. Some are genuine tweeters, who use this medium as a notice board for their activities, as a tool to reach their followers/supporters/readers/audience/voters and enemies. And there are some who are in love with the idea of their own image being larger than their last article/show/game/film/song/book. The sheer self-preening myopia of such beings and their band of friends (RTs start with “Must Read”, or “Wow, darling, [if female], your Mallaya sari is stunning”) is for rolling-of-eyes any given tweet session. I-am-the-wisest-columnist (add any profession you wish to mock!)-that-ever-pontificated-about-the-malaise-that-eats-this-nation-for-the-last-67-years and my weekly columns are what all ‘liberal’ Pakistanis swear by (the terms vary too). They write about the effects of strategic depth/assets, TTP, the good drones, the bad mullahs, persecution of other faiths, the power-hungry generals, the corrupt PMs, the ‘embarrassing’ headline that Pakistan is, and child activists (all things that I write about too…dah). And then comes the proclamation: all opposing us are rigid, bigoted, fundos and *$#@*&*. It does not matter that the prerequisite of being a liberal is to accept the existence of contradictory, contrasting and conflicting narratives, that being the beauty of the asymmetrical map of a democratic discourse. We disagree yet we co-exist. We don’t block dissent on our TL by abuse or block (an aside: thank Dorsey for block, btw, some tweeters are just, gosh, simply block-worthy). But hey, we do. Our ability to write better than most of you (yep) and our wider (and more colourful) vocabulary will tweet you to your insensible size, in words most of which are four-lettered. (Yes, all who disagree with our views are imbeciles…sans distinction.) The trolls — sigh, the serpents in our twitter paradises — the more said about them the better. Their attacks are many, albeit most in non-performing grammar, misspelt cuss words, marked with many a da and dat, masked as logic. Trolls are the spice of any TL; if you are not trolled, dude, you are not a ‘twitterati’. Another unmistakable irony on twitter is the mockery and insult heaped on the trolling many by the so-called enlightened few. The very words for which the trolls are stone-tweeted are the oh-so-cool vocab of many used in their regular tweets, thus making the non-cussing many like me go…huh! Many tweets-a-day. Here’s some unsolicited but priceless advice to all who tweet crazily, not just the trolls: use punctuation. Yes, these tiny.,;:!? make or break your tweet. And darlin’, use a smart phone to tweet if your spellings suck, the auto-correct option is just for that purpose. Then there are the self-righteous (they are a-tweet-a-hundred). They pontificate, lecture, attack all things liberal, and tweet-fatwa anyone who’s not a Muslim. Now the definition of a Muslim is as varied as the size of beards of all ‘real’ Muslims. Their personal moral code be damned, they tweet as they move their twitter-character beads to give you babies to adopt, spouses to divorce, products to endorse and wazeefas to ward off the evil eye of mom-in-law. Supporters of one political party dissing all actions of the rival parties are another mirth-inducing twitter phenomenon. PPP’s BISP is helping many. So? Remember when Zardari took many abroad on a state-sponsored trip? PML-N has condemned the attacks on other faiths. Yawn, Sharif was seen laughing with a militant mullah. PTI wants to build hospitals and schools. Big deal, Khan, in the 1980s, was a playboy. And thus continues the counter-logic. Some of the biggest comedians are the talk show hosts (sorry Nasim, Moeed, Fahd, and a couple others) who have microphones to yell into, guests to insult, cameras to grimace at and Twitter to unload on. The primetime magicians hammer their jingoistic (the evil troika of India-US-Israel in our ‘destruction-plans’, finding the ‘good’ TTP to serve as victims), agenda-driven drivel/eulogy (could be against/for a big politician or a newbie tycoon), and many a reputation is tweeted into libelous shreds when the lights, cameras, action go on hold. Ratings up. The power of blah. The ‘socialites’, those made-over with nothing more than the famous husband or famous friends’ names, the less said about them the better. The pictures with their famous spouses of the events, parties, red carpets they ‘grace’ are oh-so-glam to see. If you happen to be a politician or a superstar’s wife, and on Twitter, please bless us daily with your photo-ops with you acting as the world’s saviour or the greatest hostess/guest. No, no, we insist. Of course, it is your starry-eyed faith in your hubby’s mission/work, and not for you to have enough pics to tweet (dah). The Mother Teresa/Caroline Astor Award of the Day…goes to…you. Yipppeeee. Now take a bow and thank the PM, CMs, ministers, actors, designers, their aunts, SEATO, UNHRC, NASA… And then there are the huffing and puffing brigades (dis)courtesy which the face of Pak-India tweet-o-sphere have altered so dramatically, the impact of their ‘change’ or saffron so undeniable, so in-your-face, you love it or you hate it, to ignore it is a mission sans possibility. Stand up for the Imran Khan and Narendar Modi cyber armies (with due apologies to the countless peaceful, well-behaved ones). They read. They fume. And they respond-retaliate-assail-shoot-bomb-burn tweet back to all who DARE tweet against their leaders. To them, their two leaders (sorry, Khan, with my tremendous respect for you) are the reincarnation of Zeus, out to fight the diabolical machinations of the existing political elite headed by Cronus. Attack the ‘tsunami’ and you will be trash-tweeted to atone for the sins of your great-great-great grandfather who lived in Cuba in the 1800s. Tweet about Rahul Gandhi and you will be trolled until you whimper-tweet…okay, okay, NaMo rocks. Criticise Khan’s flawed narrative about the TTP and you will be given examples of many pacts starting from the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah in 628 AD to the ‘peace deal’ between Israel’s Rabin and Palestine’s Arafat in 1993 (both didn’t really work). Censure Modi’s blatant Hindutva, you will be lambasted for all crimes against humanity perpetuated by all Muslims since Cain and Abel — notwithstanding the tiny detail they weren’t Muslims. (You may be an atheist or the chair of a human rights org…immaterial.) Object to the alleged radicalisation of KP schools’ syllabus, and you will regret the day your parents sent you to preschool for your glorious academic future to be tweet-tortured some day. Question a statement on record by Modi about the anaemic women of Gujarat, and you will be abused until your skinny 13-year-old has graduated from Harvard (summa cum laude), and you have gone into retirement to Lhasa. Moral of the tweets: hand on heart, say in unison: